​Blog

When talking about the future of work and the future of our species, automation and Artificial Intelligence are unavoidable buzzwords. On the early morning of November 24thour team had the opportunity to visit a factory committed to both.

The Bozhon company is located in the Wujiang district of Suzhou, one of the key high-tech development areas in China. It is an R&D hub focused on creating products in the realm of digitalization and automation.

We were first given an introduction to the factory’s history by Bozhon spokesman Mr. Wang. He discussed how Bozhon—whose named in Chinese refers to “abundant knowledge”—began in 2001 with only 3 worker-researches and now has over 1100 research engineers working on some of the most cutting-edge industrial work on the planet.

We then toured the factory floor and got a peek at some of Bozhon’s products, including fully automated customized cellphones and coffee-pouring robots (they have just started deploying them in Chinese Pizza Huts). While, admittedly, much of the research and product development was a bit convoluted for brains used to analyzing international relations theory and comparative economics, the takeaway from the Bozhon factory is clear: China is heavily invested in high-tech R&D.